Seed Effect disbursed our first loans yesterday! Words can not do this day justice so I will leave it to pictures, or rather to video . . .
To watch a video of our first client, please check out our You Tube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/seedeffect (Caution: our first client was breast-feeding during the loan).
I leave tomorrow to return to the US so that I can raise enough funds to live in Kajo Keji full time. We are shutting down the satellite internet and preparing to leave so I don't have much time. Lots of stories to tell when I get back!
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Early Impressions
It has been great just living at Kaya's house/compound and getting to know everyone on the e3 trip team and also the national team. I've been surprised at how nice everyone is. Little children run after us smiling and waving. Its a little strange that everyone looks at you like they've never seen a white person before (some really haven't) but I don't think the smiling kids yelling "gelatat" (white man) will ever get old. So much to tell and I will have many stories to tell when I get back. Its a long way from home and the land is sparse, but South Sudan definitely feels like (and truly is) the frontier of both global missions and economic development. But, I feel much safer here than in Russia . . . no one hates Americans and we even have a security guy named Mawa who is ex-special forces for the South Sudan military (more stories about him to come).
Friday, November 6, 2009
Training Success
We continued to meet with the team on Sunday afternoon and Monday to prepare for the training session . . . basically we were "Training the Trainers" so that our team of nationals could conduct the actual training. On Tuesday we met our first group of potential clients and began the Loan Orientation Seminar. We actually just finished the training today and began working with our clients to fill out their loan applications. The training was much more successful than I expected. Our team really stepped up and delivered a great four days of training.
Kenneth, our Director of Operations (and hopefully future me) was truly impressive and I have a ton of confidence in him as a leader. Our clients have said the training was incredibly valuable and that they have never received this kind of training before. They learned things about business they hadn't even though of before and they now feel empowered with education. Most of our clients can't read or write and have been sparely educated due to the civil war and poverty. We will spend Saturday completing the applications, probably to distribute the first loans either Tuesday or Wednesday.
We still have so much to do to prepare for the ongoing operations of the MFI and make sure our team is ready. I am already very nervous about having to be absent for months before I can return full time. So much can go wrong without a shepherd. Please pray for the this time and that we would have faith in God's provision.
Kenneth, our Director of Operations (and hopefully future me) was truly impressive and I have a ton of confidence in him as a leader. Our clients have said the training was incredibly valuable and that they have never received this kind of training before. They learned things about business they hadn't even though of before and they now feel empowered with education. Most of our clients can't read or write and have been sparely educated due to the civil war and poverty. We will spend Saturday completing the applications, probably to distribute the first loans either Tuesday or Wednesday.
We still have so much to do to prepare for the ongoing operations of the MFI and make sure our team is ready. I am already very nervous about having to be absent for months before I can return full time. So much can go wrong without a shepherd. Please pray for the this time and that we would have faith in God's provision.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Radio Show
I got to do a radio show Monday night (there are two stations in the region). One of the local guys is like "oh, by the way, we've booked you on the radio tonight at 8, you just need to talk for about an hour" . . this was at 6:30pm. Very cloak and dagger . . . wooden shack with a UN tarp draped over the door and a diesel generator powering the antenna. They interviewed me and had me talk for about 20 minutes about Seed Effect, then Kenneth translated into Kuku. Then we took questions from callers at which point I had no idea what was going on as English as no longer being used. Totally awesome!
Monday, November 2, 2009
First Days in Kajo Keji
The first day we went with the church planting team to share the gospel in one of the neighboring villages. Its hard to describe, but think of walking through the brush (high grass) and then coming upon a mud-hut along the path every now and then. We were each paired with a translator from the local church. I was paired with Kenneth, who not coincidentally will be my right hand man at Seed Effect.
I got to share the gospel with the first group. It was a little intimidating and came across awkwardly, especially through a translator, and I thought it was going over very poorly with the group. It actually appeared to be received poorly with each of the four groups we met with. So I'm thinking I've just delivered the worst rendition of the Good News ever and with a little defeatist reluctance ask if anyone wants to know this Jesus, assuming the response would be similar to street evangelism in the US: please leave me alone. And to my amazement, the response was like "Yeah, that sounds really great, please tell me how to receive Him!" God doesn't work through eloquence (1 Cor 2:1) and amazingly 5 people received Jesus in just a few hours.
The church planting team had a wonderful week and regretfully we were only able to be with them the first day due to the work to be done for Seed Effect. Saturday we met with the team to discuss the microfinance operation and prepare for our first client Loan Orientation training. At first it seemed to be rather rocky as we had a hard time connecting, but after only a couple hours the team really came together and we made lots of progress.
Sunday we went to church and it was lots of fun. The service was beautiful in its simplicity, with quite possibly my new favorite worship song: literally the words "Jesus is number one" over and over again for about five minutes straight, and impressive in the depth of exegetical teaching with an entire hour devoted to Colossians 4:10-11 without a single thought lacking insight. I truly look forward to being taught by David Kaya, the teaching pastor who I will also live with.
I got to share the gospel with the first group. It was a little intimidating and came across awkwardly, especially through a translator, and I thought it was going over very poorly with the group. It actually appeared to be received poorly with each of the four groups we met with. So I'm thinking I've just delivered the worst rendition of the Good News ever and with a little defeatist reluctance ask if anyone wants to know this Jesus, assuming the response would be similar to street evangelism in the US: please leave me alone. And to my amazement, the response was like "Yeah, that sounds really great, please tell me how to receive Him!" God doesn't work through eloquence (1 Cor 2:1) and amazingly 5 people received Jesus in just a few hours.
The church planting team had a wonderful week and regretfully we were only able to be with them the first day due to the work to be done for Seed Effect. Saturday we met with the team to discuss the microfinance operation and prepare for our first client Loan Orientation training. At first it seemed to be rather rocky as we had a hard time connecting, but after only a couple hours the team really came together and we made lots of progress.
Sunday we went to church and it was lots of fun. The service was beautiful in its simplicity, with quite possibly my new favorite worship song: literally the words "Jesus is number one" over and over again for about five minutes straight, and impressive in the depth of exegetical teaching with an entire hour devoted to Colossians 4:10-11 without a single thought lacking insight. I truly look forward to being taught by David Kaya, the teaching pastor who I will also live with.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
My Testimony
This was not part of the plan.
In a matter of weeks, God willing, I will be moving to a small village in a very remote part of Africa. Not “going on a trip to” Africa, or “travelling” there, but moving there. If you had told me five years ago that I would be moving to Southern Sudan, to live in a small village and work with the poor and the lost, I might have laughed, or I might even have cried, but I would not have taken you seriously. Yet now I can’t imagine doing anything else. Why? What has changed in the last five years? Jesus has flipped my world upside down. He has taught me many things; most notably, that my plans are lousy compared to His.
I accepted Jesus as my Savior when I was 8. It sounded like a pretty good deal, compared to the alternative, so I signed up for salvation. But I am planner; always have been and probably always will be. I had the 1-year plan, the 5-year plan and the 10-year plan. I even had a 25-year plan at one point. These were my plans, not God’s, because I was the one in control of my life. Jesus could be my Savior, but I was in the driver’s seat.
Then my plans crumbled 5 years ago when I was graduating from college with no job and no idea where I’d gone wrong. Through a series of providential circumstances I ended up in Volgodonsk, Russia working with a mission organization to share the gospel and start a micro-loan program. Microfinance, as it is called, gives people in developing countries a way to climb out of poverty. It involves giving extremely small loans to small business owners who can’t get a loan from a bank. For example, a seamstress who sews dresses by hand might receive a $100 loan to buy a sewing machine. Suddenly instead of making 3 dresses a day, she can sew 30—enough to feed her family, and even send her kids to school. Through this program, I was able to watch struggling entrepreneurs grow businesses and pull themselves out of poverty. I got to see drug addicts liberated from their pain and come to know Jesus. I loved it. I knew this is what I was born to do. I’d found the Holy Grail of occupations. But then it ended. It ended for good reasons, not bad, but it was still over. I had to return to “The West”, to civilization, to the United States. I couldn’t understand why God would give me a glimpse of something so right and then pull it out from under me! Again, the plan I saw was crumbling.
I got a corporate job, and then another corporate job, which led me to Dallas. Here I found and fell in love with Watermark and its incredible body of believers. I planned to build my resume, get an MBA and climb the corporate ladder. I’d had a “mission experience”, but surely God wanted me to build a “career” in the corporate world. Yet, I wasn’t satisfied with my corporate job. It just wasn’t the same as in Volgodonsk. Then in February of this year, I met David and Missy, two Watermark members who wanted to start a microfinance program in Southern Sudan. Southern Sudan is quite possibly the most underdeveloped area of the planet. 90% of the people live on less than $1 a day. David and Missy were looking for help, and I was one of only a small number of people who had experience starting a microfinance program in a developing country. But I had no interest in Africa, let alone the most devastated country on the continent. Again, through a series of providential circumstances I could never dream up, of doors closing while others opened, I found myself agreeing to lead Seed Effect: Sudan, a new microfinance ministry in Kajo Keji.
Africa is a place I never wanted to visit, let alone work and live. Now, after my first trip to Sudan and with a long-term move imminently approaching, there is no place I can imagine being but Africa. Why? What changed? I’ve come to realize that Jesus has a plan and it’s always better than mine, even though he doesn’t always let me see beyond tomorrow (James 4:13-17). The journey is better with Jesus as my Savior AND my planner, the Lord of my life.
In a matter of weeks, God willing, I will be moving to a small village in a very remote part of Africa. Not “going on a trip to” Africa, or “travelling” there, but moving there. If you had told me five years ago that I would be moving to Southern Sudan, to live in a small village and work with the poor and the lost, I might have laughed, or I might even have cried, but I would not have taken you seriously. Yet now I can’t imagine doing anything else. Why? What has changed in the last five years? Jesus has flipped my world upside down. He has taught me many things; most notably, that my plans are lousy compared to His.
I accepted Jesus as my Savior when I was 8. It sounded like a pretty good deal, compared to the alternative, so I signed up for salvation. But I am planner; always have been and probably always will be. I had the 1-year plan, the 5-year plan and the 10-year plan. I even had a 25-year plan at one point. These were my plans, not God’s, because I was the one in control of my life. Jesus could be my Savior, but I was in the driver’s seat.
Then my plans crumbled 5 years ago when I was graduating from college with no job and no idea where I’d gone wrong. Through a series of providential circumstances I ended up in Volgodonsk, Russia working with a mission organization to share the gospel and start a micro-loan program. Microfinance, as it is called, gives people in developing countries a way to climb out of poverty. It involves giving extremely small loans to small business owners who can’t get a loan from a bank. For example, a seamstress who sews dresses by hand might receive a $100 loan to buy a sewing machine. Suddenly instead of making 3 dresses a day, she can sew 30—enough to feed her family, and even send her kids to school. Through this program, I was able to watch struggling entrepreneurs grow businesses and pull themselves out of poverty. I got to see drug addicts liberated from their pain and come to know Jesus. I loved it. I knew this is what I was born to do. I’d found the Holy Grail of occupations. But then it ended. It ended for good reasons, not bad, but it was still over. I had to return to “The West”, to civilization, to the United States. I couldn’t understand why God would give me a glimpse of something so right and then pull it out from under me! Again, the plan I saw was crumbling.
I got a corporate job, and then another corporate job, which led me to Dallas. Here I found and fell in love with Watermark and its incredible body of believers. I planned to build my resume, get an MBA and climb the corporate ladder. I’d had a “mission experience”, but surely God wanted me to build a “career” in the corporate world. Yet, I wasn’t satisfied with my corporate job. It just wasn’t the same as in Volgodonsk. Then in February of this year, I met David and Missy, two Watermark members who wanted to start a microfinance program in Southern Sudan. Southern Sudan is quite possibly the most underdeveloped area of the planet. 90% of the people live on less than $1 a day. David and Missy were looking for help, and I was one of only a small number of people who had experience starting a microfinance program in a developing country. But I had no interest in Africa, let alone the most devastated country on the continent. Again, through a series of providential circumstances I could never dream up, of doors closing while others opened, I found myself agreeing to lead Seed Effect: Sudan, a new microfinance ministry in Kajo Keji.
Africa is a place I never wanted to visit, let alone work and live. Now, after my first trip to Sudan and with a long-term move imminently approaching, there is no place I can imagine being but Africa. Why? What changed? I’ve come to realize that Jesus has a plan and it’s always better than mine, even though he doesn’t always let me see beyond tomorrow (James 4:13-17). The journey is better with Jesus as my Savior AND my planner, the Lord of my life.
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